The cable television (CATV) market place has used splitter/combiner products to manage video signal distribution since the industry began in the early 1950s. This first industrial application evolved into a consumer/residential application during the 1970s. Today, the delivery of video services is growing fast and deregulation of the CATV market is near. Furthermore, the bandwidth requirement is increasing with new modulator technology. New modulators are capable of 750-860 megahertz (MHz) signals rather than the 450 MHz output previously available.
Traditionally signals for CATV travel in the outbound direction from the headend or distribution point to the customer or home residences. However, with the advent of interactive CATV it is now necessary to pass signal both outbound and inbound (i.e. from the customer back to the headend). This can be accomplished by using different frequency bands on the same cable for inbound and outbound communication. But, this leads to needing a receiver at the headend for each customer. Such a requirement is not cost effective. Therefore, a need exists for a way to reduce the number of receivers needed at the headend.
The present invention provides a solution to this and other problems, and offers other advantages over the prior art.